Reading the Past Re Post
by 4ever Percabeth
Summary: This is a re-Post After a very boring council meeting, the councilors, Chiron, and the gods read Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. How do the stars of the show react when they hear about their adventures from Percy's point of view? Will the way people feel about each other change? Read to find out! Oh, by the way, Percabeth included. Rated T because I'm awesom
1. Chapter 1

I don't like doing A/N's but a few words before you start reading. This is a story where they read Rick Riordan's books. I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and the words in **bold **are Riordan's words, not mine. The words _Italiciced _are usually someones thoughts, and so far, i haven't used the underline feature yet. I will not update untill I have two reviews. Enjoy.

* * *

Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, Grover Underwood, Nico Di Angelo, Travis and Connor Stoll, Lacy (Insert Last Name Here), Will Solace, Clarisse La Rue, Miranda Gardener, and Jake Mason were all sitting around the Ping Pong table in the Big House. They had all just attended a very boring council meeting. Drew sent Lacy to represent the Aphrodite because she had to re-paint her nails.

Annabeth was drawing a design for Olympus' salad bar, while Percy watched her trying to figure out how everything worked. Thalia had drawn a target on the wall, and she and Will were shooting arrows at it. They bull's-eyes every time. Lacy was changing hair styles, and Clarisse was carving scenes of death on a spare piece of wood with her knife. Miranda was playing _Send Seymour a Snausage _with Jake. Travis and Connor were creating a Cheese Bomb. Grover was playing on his reed pipes. And Nico was asleep in his chair.

Lacy left after remembering her favorite hair clip was still in her cabin. She was running back yelling "I can't be absolute without my adornment!"

Jake left a few minutes later because playing _Send Seymour a Snausage _by yourself is boring. Instead, he decided to go down to the forge and make a shield for the youngest camper. Miranda and Will departed for archery lessons.

Suddenly Annabeth squealed and ran to the Big House Library muttering, "Pergola, need to add a Pergola. The roof. Pergola!"

Percy looked confused, "What the heck is a Pergola?"

Annabeth popped her head out of the library long enough to explain, "Percy, a Pergola is a framework in the form of a passageway of columns that supports a trelliswork roof; used to support and train climbing plants. Duh!"

The rest of the room sighed an "Oh" as if they really needed that information.

"I really don't get this!" Percy exclaimed looking at Annabeth's drawing. "Do any of you?"

They all took turns looking at Annabeth's incomplete blueprint. And each time they became confused.

Percy looked at the words on the back. "This says, 'vegetables:' and then it lists a bunch of veggies, 'fruits:' and lists a bunch of them, 'Toppings:' Then she lists a million of them. Oh! Here! 'Salad Bar is never empty. Need goddess to enchant. Paint? Demeter?' Hmmm, interesting."

Annabeth ran back into the room and grabbed her drawing. "Alcove? No mezzanine! And a Ribbon!"

She went back into the library. A few minutes later she screamed. She ran back into the room with five books that didn't look like they were on Pergolas.

"Look what I found!" She held up the books.

"Annabeth," Percy started like he was talking to a kindergartener, "a lot of people find books in a library."

"That's not what I meant." Annabeth grumbled.

Thalia yelled, "Everyone still here, SIT DOWN!" That jolted Nico out of his sleep.

"What are they called?" Grover asked.

Annabeth took a deep breath, "Ok, the first book is called The Lightning Thief. The Second one is called The Sea of Monsters, The third, The Titian's Curse, The fourth, Battle of the labyrinth, and the last one was titled the Last Olympian. But that isn't the strange part. The series title is…" she paused and looked at her boyfriend. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians."

Everyone stood up and screamed. "WHAT?"

"Are you telling me," Percy tried to make sense of it all, "That someone has written down all of my adventures?"

Annabeth looked at the author, and her eyes widened. "Oh my gods! This is written by the Fate's scribe. He can look into peoples minds and write down what their thinking. But the fates only ask him to do that when they are particularly interested in a person. His name is Rick Riordan. He goes by multiple pen names and usually he writes a story about Greek Heros so the world can hear about them. As little effect that could take on one person, it could change another's life. And… the fact that he wrote them down is not good for you. It's not good for any of us half-bloods in these books!" Annabeth set the books down on the table.

"Look," Clarisse sat down "the Fates WANTED you to find these books. They probably also WANTED you to read them. Heck, the probably WANTED me to say this, and now I am. They WANTED you to read them, so lets take turns reading them."

Everyone turned to look at her, some started to sit down and most followed their example.

A note appeared out of nowhere. Percy grabbed it. It was written in Greek, thank the gods, and Percy translated as he read. " 'Close your eyes, we are comeing –the Gods."

Knowing that not doing this would get them killed, everyone closed their eyes. 1 light appeared. 11 gods formed. 7 demigods opened their eyes. 0 people were incinerated.

Those gods happened to be: Poseidon, Athena, Zeus, Artemis, Hades, Dionysus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, and Hephaestus.

"Percy, My boy, you've grown since I last saw you." Poseidon smiled at Percy.

Athena smiled at Annabeth, and Annabeth smiled back, but neither of them said anything.

"My Lady!" Thalia exclaimed when she saw Artemis, "Father," she added quickly.

The other demigods had a quick exchange with their parents, though there were 4 more gods than demigods and satyrs.

"Grover. Could you get Chiron. He enjoys things like this." Dionysus asked lazily.

Grover trotted into the other room saying, "Yes, Mr. D, Of course."

See, Dionysus, or Mr. D, was the camp director for the camp. It was his punishment for chasing an off- limits nymph. He was supposed to stay here for a few millennia. But, then after the titian war he was allowed on Olympus for their 3 month party. Even though most of Olympus was in ruins, Kronos had never gotten around to destroying Zeus's largest temple. So they held the party there.

Chiron was a centaur. Half man, half horse. He clip- clopped into the room with Grover right behind him. They both sat down and the gods created chairs and joined the demigods for a evening full of entertainment.

"Ok," Annabeth said "So we read the books and do what?"

"Annabeth," Athena addressed her daughter "You know as well as I that these books will give all of us a new perspective on how the story went. I have a feeling that- because of what I have seen Percy seen and do over the years- that it will be quite entertaining. The Fate's scribe will most likely have looked into Percy's mind and written it with his thoughts. We will read the books, and learn from them."

Percy suddenly looked queasy, "Um, will none of you get angry at me, and like burn me to ashes if I say something bad about you? 'Cause knowing myself, I will."

The gods all grumbled in agreement.

Annabeth smiled. "Who wants to read the first chapter?"

"I will, cause it's about me." Percy grumbled.

**Chapter 1  
I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher**

Suddenly the room burst out laughing. Partly at the title, Partly at Percy's blushing.

"What kind of title is that Percy?" Annabeth asked.

"HEY! It's not like I wrote the thing!" Percy replied. "I'm gonna start reading again!"****

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

"How is that advice?" Athena asked perplexed.

Percy ignored her.****

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

"What a great moral booster."

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Seriously, Percy?"****

But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

"How are we supposed to know who is talking when you don't introduce yourself?" Grover asked

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"Yes, I know what your name is! But that is no excuse for not telling us in the story." Grover protested.

"Dude! That's what it says in the book. 'Don't say I didn't warn you.' And then, 'My name is Percy Jackson.'" Percy replied.

"Oh!" Grover replied.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

Am I a troubled kid?

"Yeah. You could say that." Clarisse exclaimed.

Percy started laughing.

"What?" Clarisse asked.

"The next line." Percy said before starting to laugh again.

"Well read it!" Clarisse yelled.****

Yeah. You could say that.

This time it was Clarisse who started blushing. ****

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, 

"You did make it to sixteen. That's pretty long for a child of the big three!" Hermes said.

**but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"That sounds interesting." Annabeth and Athena said intrigued.

**I know—it sounds like torture. **

"Torture?" They asked.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

"Sleep?" They asked again. ****

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.

"Cool!" The Stolls, Hermes, Ares, and Clarrisse all exclaimed exitedly.

** And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"I wanted to know more," Ares whimpered in a manly way.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Grover was an easy target. 

"Hey!" Grover yelled.

**He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

Grover blushed.****

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death 

"Excuse me?" Poseidon yelled.

"Dad calm down!" Percy sounded worried. Let me start that sentence again.

**The headmaster had treatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Oh!" Poseidon blushed.****

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

"Do it!" Clarisse and Ares yelled.****

Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"GROVER!" the war duo gave murderous looked to Grover.****

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

Nico and Hades exchanged nervous looks.****

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

"GROVER!" Annabeth screeched.

Percy put his hand on her shoulder and she calmed down instantly. Poseidon sighed. How could he and Athena's kids get along and not them. It hurt him. But it also made him less mad at her. _Being a god is difficult: he thought_

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and  
said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

The gods flinched.****

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"

"God?!" The Olympians were furious.****

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Which sucked!" one of the gods yelled.****

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."

"You summed up years, and years of history in 5 sentences?" Annabeth asked.

"I have a talent!" Percy smiled innocently at her.

"The only talent you have is using water," Annabeth grumbled "No offence Poseidon!" she added quickly.****

Some snickers from the group.  
Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted!" Apollo, The Stolls and Hermes chorused

"Boys." Thalia murmured. Artemis, who had heard her hunter, smiled.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

Another round of laughter.****

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the **Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"HAPPY NOTE?" everyone but Chiron asked.****

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

"Guys are doofuses, they don't need to act." Artemis grumbled.

"HEY!" All the boys in the room protested.****

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.

"About the Titans?" 

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

"He's a teacher!"****

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. 

"Awesome!"

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life.**

"C-?" Athena asked outraged.

"How do you think you daughter came up with the name 'Seaweed Brain?" Percy defended. ****

No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

"I was. She was a nice lady." Chiron said.****

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

"Sorry!" Poseidon and Zeus grumbled****

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

Most people laughed.****

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius." Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

Grover blushed. All the demigods cracked up.****

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me. 

"Awww!" Aphrodite cooed.****

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

"I so need one!" Hermes yelled.****

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

"She needs braces!" Travis commented.****

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

Poseidon raised his eyebrows, "Interesting description."****

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

"Did not!" Percy interrupted himself long enough to say.****

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

"Really?" Clarisse asked.

Percy shrugged and continued reading.****

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—" "I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

"Never guess your punishment!" Hermes and his two sons blurted.****

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Well, duh!" The three face palmed.****

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

"Hey!" Percy looked at Grover "Thanks again G-man!"

"No prob."****

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You—will—stay—here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. 

"Can I see it?" Clarisse asked.

Percy gave it to her, and trust me, It's not pretty.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

How'd she get there so fast? I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. 

"That's an interesting way of putting it!" Athena commented to herself.

**The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Dodds. Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

"CHIRON!"****

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...

"She probably did. She's like that, you know." Nico explained.

Percy nodded.****

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about. All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.

"Candy!" Apollo whined!

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"It's not a bad book, you know," Annabeth defended.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

"Monster!" Everyone screamed

**Then things got even stranger.**

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Poseidon's eyes twinkled.****

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

"That would be bad," Thalia said nonchalantly

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

"Natural?" Someone asked.****

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss! 

Everyone pictured that

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

A chill ran down Percy's spine.****

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

"Those are actually pretty good," Hephaestus grunted.****

Had I imagined the whole thing? I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

_How blunt: _the smart people thought.****

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

"Who?"****

I said, "Who?"

Laughter.****

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?" 

"I felt fine!" Percy yelled. "Oh," he said in a calmer voice, "That's the end of the chapter."

Annabeth raised her hand like she was in class "I'll read next!"

Conner jumped in his seat. "What's it called? What's it called?"

"**Three old ladies knit the socks of death. **Were those the…" Annabeth's voice trailed off. The room fell silent with realization.


	2. Chapter 2

Here is the new chapter you guys all wanted me to do. Same rule applies. I need at least 2 reviews. (That way i know you guys are still out there.)

Quick review, we just finished reading the first chapter. The people who are there are: Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood, Thalia, Travis and Connor Stoll, Clarisse La Rue, Nico Di Angelo, Poseidon, Athena, Zeus, Artemis, Hades, Dionysus, Hermes, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, and Hephaestus.

Again, I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

The **bold **words are from Rick Riordan's book. They are not mine.

* * *

"I think I should start reading." Annabeth broke the silence in the room.

Percy felt relieved he didn't have to talk first, "Please."

**Three old Ladies knit the socks of death**

Annabeth repeated the chapter title.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.

Annabeth paused waiting for someone to yell out, _you are psycho, _but most people were still shaken up from the chapter title.****

It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

** But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

"You are a bad liar." Thalia said, trying to lighten up the mood.

Grover, who had understood her emotions exclaimed, "Hey!"

A few giggles from the crowd, maybe a smile or two. At least it's better than nothing.****

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

"Now he figures it out. The stupid guy realizes something completely obvious. How do you put up with him Annabeth?" Thalia joked.****

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. 

"F's?" That shook Athena out of her shock "How can you get F's?"

"In my defense something freaky had just happened!" Percy argued.

"But, still!"

Demigods and gods started laughing at Athena's expression: complete disgust.

After they had all calmed down Annabeth started reading again

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

"It means-" Annabeth started only to be cut off by Percy.

"We don't need to know," He said.****

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window,

Artemis smiled at that.

** the Hudson River in the distance, **

Poseidon chuckled at that.

**the smell of pine trees. **

Thalia was offended by that.

**I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

Grover blushed.****

I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

"Good, then he will be closer to finding out who he really is," Athena commented.****

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, 

Chiron looked offended.

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir."

"OOOOOH!" The Stoll brothers sang, getting louder as they went along.****

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, 

"I bet!" Travis exclaimed.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

Connor sighed, "Good point.****

I inched closer.

No one dared to interrupted. They all wanted to know what Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about.****

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too—"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more." 

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline— "**

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her... ."

"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

"No!" Hermes yelled.

"Rule number 5 of eavesdropping!" Travis exclaimed.

"Never give away your position!" Conner screeched in disbelief.****

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

"Good. Don't leave any traces is number 12," Hermes said.****

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me." The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

"Do you know how hard it is to repeat the same tests OVER and OVER?" Grover angrily sighed.****

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

"Were you reading my emotions?" Percy asked. "I mean, you satyrs can do that. So, my attempt for you to not know what I was thinking didn't work… cause you're a satyr. And you read emotions. So you could tell what I was thinking about."

Percy was suddenly confused by what he just said and Grover ****

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back.

"o O O Ohhhh." The Stolls harmonized in a scary way.****

They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, 

People looked at Percy sympathetically. They knew all about annoying exams. Most demigod lives were one.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

"Chiron," Zeus spoke up "I hereby announce that a few demigods are going to teach YOU how to give a good pep talk."

Chiron blushed as much as a teacher who had been training heroes for his whole life could. ****

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

"Ewww!"****

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say.

"This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

"Chiron! Really?"****

My eyes stung. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.

"Percy—"

But I was already gone.

"How nice." Mr. D mumbled under his breath.****

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

"Are you sure about that?" Annabeth joked. But the gods took it seriously.

"Are you saying we're nobodies? Because I don't think we are!" Zeus made the sky rumble and rain.

Percy came up with a quick solution. "Sir." He started, crafting his words carefully to not further anger the sky god "I didn't know anything then. I didn't even realize that you existed."

Zeus accepted his apology in silence and stopped the storm.****

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?" 

"Bla- ah- ah- ah." Grover glared at Percy "You gave me a heart- attack!"

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover—"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

"And the truth comes out!" Nico smiled.****

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like: 

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 009-0009**

**"What's Half—"**

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. 

"Nope." Grover muttered under his breath.

**I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. **

He sighed, "I'm not rich either."

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

"Wow," He face palmed "I don't have one of those either.****

He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

"Things that want to kill me." Percy answered his own question.****

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there.

On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

Silence.****

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

"Uh- oh…" Muttered Clarisse.****

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. 

Poseidon's eyes grew wide.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"You notice," Thalia said "That it fixes itself after the string was cut."

Everyone contemplated that.****

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?" He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

"Nope." Grover replied.

"Worse!" Annabeth exclaimed

"More frightening…" Percy shivered.

And the unspoken word: More dangerous.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

A cold ice spread across the readers. The simplest action = The scariest fate _(A/N: You read that sentence w/out the = in it)_****

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

Grover blushed at how he freaked out.****

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

People stared at Percy. The dumbest guy in the world knew something no one should know about.****

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

"And that's the end of the chapter," Annabeth announced. "Thalia?"

Thalia grabbed the book, and started laughing.

"What is it Thals?" Percy asked, suppriesed at her recent burst.

"The title of the chapter is... is..."

Everyone waited.

"Grover unexpectedly loses his pants!"

Grover blushed.

"Sorry?" He asked/ apologized.

But no one heard him.

They were too busy laughing their heads off.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey! So here is the next chapter. I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The words in **Bold **are Rick Riordans, not mine.

My sister has been begging me to do another chapter, and I got those 2 reviews i needed, so here you are reading again.

I have been very busy these last couple of days. Mostly, I was busy sleeping.

Same rules apply, I must have at LEAST 2 reviews for me to update.

Enjoy!

* * *

When everyone calmed down, Thalia started reading.

**Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants **

Another fit of laughter.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Percy!" Annabeth scolded as she hit him with the back of her hand. ****

I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.

"Sorry…" Grover mumbled.****

Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, 

Aphrodite cooed, "Awww!"

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. **

"I'm so sorry," Thalia said, even though she already knew.

"I visited them in the underworld once," Nico piped up "They were really nice."

Percy nodded.

**She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

Silence around the table. Everyone was having a moment to recognize Sally Jackson: The nicest person in the world. (As cheesy as that sounds!)****

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

Aphrodite squealed. Poseidon smiled at this comment. Most people did.****

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea. 

"Sea, water, Poseidon, Anyone else sensing a connection?"

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe.

I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Poseidon growled.****

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

"That's the greeting?" Clarisse asked "Don't expect me to join your fan club prissy, but that is not how you greet a person!"****

That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months? Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk less walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

"Even I couldn't fit a mess like him!" Aphrodite groaned in disgust. Her face showed complete revolt.****

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret."

Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

Poseidon growled a little louder.****

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow.

Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else. "You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

"You're the one not carrying his own weight," Hephaestus mumbled to himself, though, everyone heard him. They all silently agreed. ****

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

"Eww!" The girls in the room screeched louder than any girl had screeched before. That's right, one screech for girl, one really loud screech for girl-kind.****

"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."

"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

Another 'ew' from the girls of the room.

Poseidon stood up. "Who does he think he is?!" he fumed.

"Dad," Percy half asked, "Please calm down, I only had to live with him for half of my life."

Poseidon sat down, still angry.****

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.

The 'ew' turned to an 'awww'. And the loudest one came from Aphrodite herself.****

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. 

"That's so sweet!" Aphrodite smiled, tears in her eyes.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe. **

"I need a tissue!" Aphrodite grabbed the nearest tissue and started to dab at her eyes.

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

"You get free candy?" Apollo, Hermes, the Stolls whined, "No fair!"

Percy smiled smugly.

Artemis and Thalia murmured something like, "Boys are such idiots."****

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right? I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"

Poseidon started to get angry again, and it took a lot more people to calm him down.****

I gritted my teeth.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.

"Yes," Poseidon agreed.****

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.

Until that trip to the museum ...

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets.

"Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach." 

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

"Three nights—same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

"I love that beach," Percy and Poseidon sighed.****

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

"That's because he spends it all gambling," Aphrodite pouted.****

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, 

"DO IT!" Ares yelled.

"PUNCH HIS LIGHTS OUT!" Clarisse screamed.

**but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

"NO!" They both wailed.****

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money."

That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"NOT THE CLOTHES!" Aphrodite screamed "YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY ONE OF THE 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD!"

"What are the seven wonders of the world?" Percy asked her.

Aphrodite's mood changed instantly, "Well, Makeup, Jewelry, Clothes, Shoes, Hair Accessories, Nail Polish, and ME!"

"I see…" Percy was pretty sure that those weren't the 7 wonders of the world, but he stayed quiet. ****

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

"Why do I get the feeling that he's not gonna do it? Even if I yell 'Do it'?" Ares asked.****

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought? "I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game.

"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about… whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.

"He cares more about his car than his wife?"****

"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.

"OOOOH!" The Conner sang.

"Feel the burn!" Travis yelled.****

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it. Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders 

A shudder from Athena and Annabeth.

**in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

I loved the place.

Poseidon smiled.****

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

Aphrodite squealed.****

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

"CANDY!"****

I guess I should explain the blue food.

"Please do," Athena agreed. Then she realized she was talking to a book.****

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."

People studied the two. Looking from Percy to Poseidon, trying to see a difference. But they were almost mirror images of the other. Except for the fact Poseidon was millions of years old, and Percy was sixteen.****

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud." I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

Poseidon's expression said something like, _I did see you. _But, he said nothing.****

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me ...

I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" 

Annabeth slapped her boyfriend on the leg, "Percy!" She reproved.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

"You know what," Clarisse said "I still don't get what this chapter has to do with Grover losing his pants."

"And why do you bring this up now?" Annabeth asked

"Because, I thought of it."

"Right…"****

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe." "Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

"A rogue Cyclops," Poseidon mused.****

Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

"Nice!" Ares exclaimed. Then he noticed he was talking to Percy and quickly added, "For a toddler, I mean."****

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword.

But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"How sweet!"****

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

"CampHalf-Blood," Percy smiled.****

My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before? "I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. 

Percy sighed.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Oh, great!" Thalia exclaimed sarcastically.****

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

The big three gods were suddenly very interested in the ping pong table.****

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, "No!" 

**I woke with a start.**

"We never do wake up peacefully, do we?" Annabeth asked, not really looking for an answer. ****

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses.

There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Grover cried indignantly.

"Nothing. Don't worry," Percy reassured him "It was the first time I saw a satyr, in real life." ****

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. "O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

Percy bit his lip.****

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...

"I get the chapter title now!" Clarisse nodded her head and smiled in understanding despite what was happening in the book.****

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

"Dun, Dun, Duuunnn!" Apollo and Hermes chorused.

"Who's reading next?" Thalia asked.

"I will," Grover volunteered. "As long as the title has nothing to do about me and my attire!"


	4. Chapter 4

Ok. Here is the dealio. I know that i haven't updated in forever, so did two chapters. The main reason that it took me so long is that school starting, blah, blah, blah. So, Yeah. Sorry if you are mad at me. This time around i DON'T need 2 reviews for me to update again, but i would still appriciate it. Thanks!

All words in bold are not mine. I do not own percy Jackson and the olympians.

* * *

The Lightning Thief - Chapter 04 - My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

"Excuse me?" Grover asked, clearly offended.

"The past is the past?" Percy said, though it sounded more like a question.

Grover sighed, deciding to go mega-goat on Percy later.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

**"Watching me?"**

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."**

**"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"Blaa-ha-ha!" Grover bleated "After this chapter your getting some hoof!"

Percy cowered in his seat.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a goat from the waist down."**

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

**"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Always missing the point," Thalia sighed.

**"Of course." **

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Grover!" Shouted Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Poseidon, Athena, and Apollo. The rest didn't care (Mr. D), or thought it would be ok.

**"Grover!"**

"We're psychic!"

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

**"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."**

"What?" Annabeth asked. Percy walked her through it, surprisingly enough, Athena and her daughter were stumped.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please.**

**Please."**

**I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.**

_Uh-oh! _Percy thought. Even knowing what happened, it was scary.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

Percy shifted in his seat. That was NOT something he wanted to feel again.

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

_That's all he says? _Thalia wondered. _Hmm… everyone is eerily quiet. Oh, right. Kelp head thought he was going to die._

**"Percy!" my mom shouted. "I'm okay... ."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die! Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"O-kay then…" Grover said.

**Before anyone else in the room could comment on this, he started reading.**

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"Look like?" Poseidon questioned.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"Big tree," Thalia said.

**"What?"**

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door." **

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...**

_UUHHGh! _Poseidon groaned internally.

**"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"I wonder why!" Nico joked. He shut up when he saw the look on Poseidon's face.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps,**

"'Ceps?" Athena asked innocently.

Aphrodite leaned on the table. "How, may I ask, do you realize these tiny details?"

"I didn't write the book!" Percy half defended, half groaned.

"If he had," Conner started, "It would have said something like, 'Big bull thing was chasing me!'"

Travis snorted, "'Must get gone. It wants to kill me.'"

Everyone realized that since the action started, they and Clarisse had been strangely silent. So had most of the gods. It wasn't everyday where you were listening to a half- blood's thoughts about the world they lived in. Dionysus was too busy reading his wine magazine to pay attention. Hephaestus never commenting, so most didn't know about him either. Apollo and Artemis had made a silent truce to not fight, but no one knew how long that would last. Percy gestured to Grover to continue reading.

**all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—**

**enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

Thalia stared at Percy, "How, in the name of the gods do you come up with these, these…" She looked at Annabeth for the right word. All she got was a cruel smile and Grover reading.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us.**

**But he couldn't be real.**

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**The pine tree**

Thalia sighed. She had a feeling she was, 'The pine tree.'

**was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage.**

"Your life could be a movie!" Nico joked. "_Cue bull man!_"

**He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

**Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

_Mega-oops! _Percy thought.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Why do monsters smell?" Aphrodite asked.

The group considered that. Why _did _monsters smell? The airhead actually had a point.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

"GO JACKSON!" Clarisse cheered.

Percy looked at her like she was mad. Clarisse was cheering him on. Scary thought.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

They processed that information. Percy and Poseidon were trying not to re-create the Pacific Ocean, while the others just bowed their heads. They were trying to imagine what the world would be like without Sally Jackson. For the gods, she was one of the only mortals they admired. Of course some liked themselves more, but she was still amazing. To demigods, she was a second mother. They could go to her for help, or if they needed a place to stay for a night. She could also help them with wounds, because being the mother of Percy Jackson, she needed a LOT of nectar.

**"No!" Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

A few laughs.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment. But it didn't happen like that.**

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"Sweet!"

**How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes.**

**The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off. "Food!" Grover moaned.**

Grover scowled.

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap! The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass.**

**My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—**

Cheers from the crowd. They hadn't dared to talk during that last bit of the fight.

**not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

Hades sighed.

**The monster was gone.**

"Gone like the wind!" Conner sang

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

"Loyal," Athena said, smiling.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

"Is that so?" Annabeth laughed at her brief description. "Cue me!"

Thalia rolled her eyes when they hugged. Mushy stuff made her head hurt.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"Finally!" Grover complained. "That was extremely exhausting, not to mention excruciatingly embarrassing."

Hephaestus looked at his watch and stood up. "I have work to do," He gruffly announced and left.

Clarisse smiled devilishly. "If Nico reads the next chapter I'll read after him!" She volunteered.

Nico took the book, "Ok."

Chiron smiled, "I would love to continue reading but I have archery lessons to teach."

"Bye Chiron!" Annabeth called kindly. She guestured to Nico to read.


	5. Chapter 5

K. I don't feel like writing a long A/N. All words in bold are not mine. I do not own Percy Jackson and the olympians. Rick Rocks!

* * *

**The Lightning Thief - Chapter 05 - I Play Pinochle with a Horse**

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"Ok, then." Nico elongated his words.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

"Aww!" Aphrodite cooed. "That's so cute!"

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

Thalia and a few others snickered.

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me.**

**He had blue eyes— at least a dozen of them—on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

"Argus."

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

Grover frowned.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ...**

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

People looked at Percy sadly.

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea—"**

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really ..."**

**He looked down.**

And everyone around the table followed his example.

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

Aphrodite smiled along with Poseidon, Artemis, Thalia, and Annabeth.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm—I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

"Grover!" Thalia scolded, "Do you realize that you are the first satyr in the 21st century to find a child of all the big three?"

"Yes." He said weakly.

"Good."

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

Zeus sighed remembering how hard it was to make the sky rumble all those times.

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head. But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

Aphrodite smiled at this very depressing topic.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

Percy nodded agreeing with himself.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid—poor goat, satyr, whatever—looked as if he expected to be hit.**

"That can be arranged," Clarisse said, cracking her knuckles.

"That's ok!" Grover shivered.

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay. Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

Chuckles started. Chuckles turned to laughter. Laughter took a long time to stop.

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite,**

This statement lead to a flash mob of the Stolls singing the song dynamite, and dancing horribly.

**and set it back on the table.**

**"Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture**

Annabeth smiled.

**—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena**

Clarisse and Ares nodded their heads.

**—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"Blackjack!" The demigods cheered!

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels— what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my stepfather.**

Dionysus looked offended. Nobody realized that he had been listening, but they figured he wasn't mad at the wine.

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron... ."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.**

Athena's jaw dropped. "How are the children supposed to learn that way?" She asked.

"Can we just Get through the book?"

"If I get an answer."

"Your not getting an answer."

"What was that?"

"You can get your answer after the book."

"Hhh, Fine."

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice.**

**If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl. She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

"You didn't stay there very long!"

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

Annabeth smiled. Unlike Mr.D, her description was good. Plus, she actually did live in California.

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.**

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

Laughter filled the room. No one could help it, it was just hilarious.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex—Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

Zeus was about to make a comment, but Percy quickly said, "I know! I know! Names have power! Blah, Blah, Blah!"

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence." I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

**"Yup"**

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

"Sadly, I Thalia, Failed the first test."

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

**"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun—Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

Grover grabbed a ping pong ball and a coke can and started eating.

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.**

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?' "She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

**"No," Chiron decided.**

"You didn't see the film?" Nico asked.

"Nope!" Percy smiled.

"Sucks for you. I liked it."

**"Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"— **

"Know what?"

**he pointed to the horn in the shoe box—"that you have killed the Minotaur. **

"Ah"

**No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

He looked at the can he was chewing at the moment and this time he chewed with happiness.

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

"Smaller?" The gods screeched.

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

They calmed down happy the demigod remembered them.

Apollo wanted to host a party because Percy had listed him.

**And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.**

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff.**

The gods pouted.

They're what people believed before there was science."

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. **

The demigods had a laughing fit. Apollo joined in. So did Hermes. It took them forever to calm them down. And they still giggled from time to time.

**Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut. "Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

Percy shuddered.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

Poseidon sighed, happy that wasn't the turn out.

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

Zeus looked at Dionysus and muttered some pretty bad words under his breath.

**My jaw dropped,**

"Get used to it!"

**but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

**"A wood nymph," I repeated,**

"Juniper… Oh, Juniper." Grover thought about his girlfriend.

**still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

**"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

Percy and Nico looked at each other and smiled. Then they chorused, "He's the wine dude!"

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

Aphrodite frowned at the stupid thought.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

"Yup." He grumbled.

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?"**

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either—America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.**

"Party!"

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?" Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

"Nope!"

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

"I think you need a stronger word then adore…" Conner criticized.

"Perhaps, Live off of." Travis agreed.

"That's three words, idiot!" Annabeth said.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached. I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

"Interesting description!"

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks**

"What the heck is a fetlocks?"

**had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"But we're here!" Conner called.

Percy just frowned at him, "Oh, Hi! My name is Percy Jackson what's yours?" he said sarcastically in a monotone voice.

"Connor!"

"Nice to meet you."

"You too!"

Annabeth sighed, "Just give it up already."

Clarisse grabbed the book from Nico's hands.

"Shoot!" She screamed.

"What?" Percy asked.

"I miscalculated!" She wailed.

"On what?" Thalia wondered.

"The stupid chapters!"

"Why, What is it called?" Annabeth asked.

"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom!" She cried, (without actually crying).

People tried to stifle their laughs as she started to read.


End file.
